Worker fatality leads to $150K fine for Welland company
A Welland-based steel fabricator and erector will pay a fine of $150,000 for its role in an on-site incident that led to a worker’s death in 2019.
Perth County Fabrication, which operates out of Bornholm, Ontario, entered a guilty plea in a St. Catharines court. The company will pay a fine of $120,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, plus an additional 25-percent victim fine surcharge.
The incident occurred on November 12, 2019, at a construction site on King Street in Welland.
Perth County Fabrications had been retained to fabricate and install structural steel upon which concrete would be installed at a site for construction of a multi-storey retirement residence. The company employed several workers at the project.
On November 5, 2019, an engineer conducted a site visit and found that the precast concrete slabs on the second floor of the building under construction did not bear sufficiently on the structural steel beams.
The engineer’s report stated that no load should be placed on top of the concrete slabs until the matter had been addressed properly. The report also recommended that the areas above and below the concrete in question should be taped off so that no person was under or on top of these slabs.
At a meeting between the construction contractors that included Perth, the construction team determined that those structural beams had been installed incorrectly. A plan was put in place to rectify the problem.
The plan required the pre-cast concrete contractor to remove the slabs on the offending steel beams, so that Perth could remove the beams and re-install them correctly. However, by November 12, 2019, the concrete contractor had not made arrangements to remove the slabs, as planned.
A Perth supervisor decided to take steps to expedite the work and directed a worker employed by Peth to remove most of the bolts on the structural beams and cut the rebar connections under the concrete slabs.
The supervisor did not instruct the worker to install bracing to support the concrete slabs once the bolts had been removed.
When the worker cut the rebar under one of the overhead concrete slabs, the slab fell on top of the worker. The worker was crushed and killed.
An investigation by the Ministry of Labour Training and Skills Development determined that Perth failed to ensure that the concrete slabs were adequately braced to prevent any movement that may affect their stability or cause a failure or collapse.
The violation was an offence contrary to section 66(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.